This Experiment Didn’t Take Long

Posted on by Jeff Posted in batteries, flashlights, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

battery bob As the raw material in batteries continues to increase in price, we feel real pressure to try and save customers some money. We’ve steadily watched the cost of alkaline batteries increase, so I like to test non-name brand competition whenever I can.

I’m sitting and staring at two glowing flashlights on my desk as I write this blog-one flashlight is using a couple of Duracell Procell AA batteries and an identical light contains a fresh pair of AA from a company called Permalife.

Unfortunately,it looks like the “Permalife” is going to be considerably less than “Permanent”. It’s already starting to dim.

We were excited when we got pricing information about the Permalife brand, as these batteries had real potential to save our customers some money. The savings evaporate in a hurry if it takes three or four batteries to match the performance of one ProCell.

It’s bad when a flashlight fails in use, but you usually get some warning. It gradually fades out rather than failing all at once. A wireless microphone is very different. Once its voltage in the transmitter falls below a certain point, the receiver becomes vulnerable to all sorts of outside interference. This can be disasterous or funny. Usually the former. Rarely the latter.

As the sun sets on this blog, the Permalife-equpped flashlight fades to black and our quest for a good no name battery continues. If we ever find one, I’ll let you know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. We’re your source for honest battery information.

Electratrac to the Rescue!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in extension cords — No Comments ↓

mike2 I got an interesting call yesterday from a prospective customer with an extension cord problem. His company offers computer training courses all over the country by sending technicians to a local site and teaching the course in a hotel meeting room. The business is growing fast and they offer seminars all over the country.

One of the most complicated parts of this mobile classroom concept is actually setting up and wiring the computers so that every participant in the class has their own work station. He needed lots of outlets, even though his total power consumption was not all that high.
One of his classes was visited recently by the local fire marshall who threatened to shut the class down because the extension cord arrangement being used did not meet local codes.

He was inquiring about the potential suitability of the Electratrac MultiOutlet cable for this use. I could almost hear his sigh of relief when I assured him that these cables were exactly what he needed and that they would pass the fire marshall’s inspection regimen. They are UL approved, have high quality jackets and meet all codes for temporary wiring.
I suggested that the begin his setup with a 12 gauge cable. If he needs more outlets, he can reduce to a 14 gauge cable as he gets closer to the end of his outlet chain. That saves a little money and weight. Adding additional cables is clean and simple, because each Electratrac Cable has a handy outlet on its end.

If you try this, you will need to do some quick and simple math. Each computer, or other device, will show its power consumption on a tag on the back. You need to total this wattage and convert it to amps to make sure you don’t overload the circuit. Here’s a link to how to do the math.

Got a use for Electratrac Cables that might be of interest to our readers. Share it with us!


GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

You’ve Got To Be Confident To Label Your Cases In Pink!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in gaffers tape — No Comments ↓

spokesguyI usually end a blog posting with an invitation for your to send us an interesting use for something we sell. I got a really good followup from a customer who buys gaffers tape from us.

This company uses the neon colored gaffers tape to label equipment cases in their stage equipment rental business.

A different color is used for each type of instrument case (e.g. neon green for drum cases, neon orange for keyboard cases, etc.) This allows for quick preparation of customers’ rental orders (they have hundreds of cases in their warehouse) and cuts the check in time when an order comes back to the shop for unpacking.

Colored Pro Gaffer gaffers tape can be written on with a Sharpie Marker, so additional information can be added to the label (e.g. exactly what is in the case, associated cases, etc.). Even further “quick identify” info can be added by using multiple stripes of one or more colors.

Gaffers tape is extremely durable and long lasting and can be removed cleanly from a case without leaving adhesive residue.

These guys keep the color red in reserve to mark incoming cases that might need to be repaired or put on the bench to be checked out for possible problems.

The colors are really handy on an event site as well, as no one else on a site that might involve a dozen or more vendors is likely to have labeling like theirs. Its quick and easy to instruct a stagehand to put all the cases with neon green and electric blue labels together. Best of all, a 60 yard roll of tape will make hundreds of labels.

Maybe you’ve got another useful labeling idea? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

An elegant solution for a vexing problem

Posted on by Jeff Posted in microphones & mic stands — No Comments ↓

mike2We used to operate a large audio visual rental equipment business here in the college town where we are located. The majority of our rentals were in small sound systems and we rented a lot of what came to be called “PA on a stick”.

This was made up of a couple of speakers mounted on tripods, a mixer/amplifer, a mic and stand, and a simple cable package. It was simple to set up, fit in the trunk of a car, and was a solid revenue producer for this division of our company.

Unfortunately, we had one set of speakers (JBL Eons) which used a different sized fitting for tripod mounting than every other speaker in the rental stock.

What a pain!

I can’t count the number of times an unhappy customer came back in after a rental complaining that the speaker would not fit the tripod.

Totally our fault. No matter how hard we tried, we never seemed to be able to match up these speakers with the only set of tripods we had that would fit. We had some adapters that would work but these seemed impossible to keep up with.

I have no idea why JBL decided to adopt a different standard than every other speaker maker on the planet, but we’ll save that discussion for another time.

OnStage Stands to the rescue.

OnStage now makes a speaker stand that has different sized diameters on opposite ends of the part of their speaker tripod that holds the speaker.

Got the wrong size? Just slip the tube out, flip it over and reinsert it into the lower tube. Problem solved.

We love the OnStage Stand line and have found it to be a great value. Hope you agree.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

How long will an extension cord last?

Posted on by Jeff Posted in extension cords — No Comments ↓

Tex TalksI was installing some new electronics last night and got to the end of my supply of extension cords before I finished the job. I had to dig deep into the cable archives and came across some power cable I had put together for a nightclub installation we had done 30 YEARS AGO!

Someone (probably not me) had taken the time and care to properly “under and over” coil these, tie them up with tie line and store them in a dark road case. I couldn’t believe what great shape they were in. I put them to use right away and didn’t burn the house down-at least not yet!

I thnk the two secrets to the longevity of these cables was that they were stored where no sun light would shine on them, thus no uv radiation to break down the jacket, and, more importantly, they were properly coiled. Any stranded wire (these were fine strands of copper) has a natural twist that needs to be respected when the cables are coiled. Coiling or wrapping them against this twist (e.g. wrapping them around your arm and hand) will quickly lead to permanent kinks and eventually cause enough of the individual strands to break down. Conductivity is reduced, heat is generated and, eventually the cable can get hot enough to melt the jacket.

Next time you have a new extension cord, take the time to coil it properly with an under/over looping method and it will last a long, long time.

Need other supplies for running power and av gear? Goodbuyguys.com has extension cords, wire ties, Velcro cable wraps and batteries.


GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Flashlight News

Posted on by Jeff Posted in flashlights — No Comments ↓

fred looks rightWe get lots of pitches from manufacturers of the types of products we sell, hoping that we will consider offering their product at our web sites. Our profile online is pretty high, so a lot of sales people find us.

We have flashlights as one of our product offerings, and a number of interesting products have recently crossed my desk.

Evaluating these products inevitably led to the question “what makes a good flashlight?”. After years of no real changes in the incandescent lamp/alkaline battery combination, we have recently seen a number of innovations in flashlight design. Some are great, but others won’t be with us for long.

Most of the recent samples I have seen use the new LED lamp technology. The cost of LEDs has continued to go down even as their brightness has increased.

LCD flashlights offer longer battery life, longer lived, more durable lamps and the potential for decreased weight. Even with all these potential advantages, some manufacturers just don’t seem to be able to get it right.

One example comes from Energizer-their Hardcase Line. For starters, there was more plastic in the package than there was in the flashlight. No exaggeration. It was heavy plastic too. The kind that costs real money. The flashlight was attached to the package with 50 lb. wire ties, so I had to have wire cutters just to get it loose from its holder. Two strikes against them, and I hadn’t even held the thing yet.

The package included two batteries (Energizer, of course) which were supposed to clip into two separate holders on the package. They had come loose in transit and were rolling around in the bottom of the box.

Ok. Now it was time to put in the batteries. It only took three of us about ten minutes to figure this one out. Maybe its just me, but I don’t believe that most people expect square-shaped fittings to be threaded. The packaging had no information regarding how to install the batteries and the cap on the back of the body of the flashlight was square. It just did not appear like a screw-off fitting.

Once the batteries were in, we turned the light on and it did have pretty good brightness. However, Energizer, the maker of the batteries, claims right on the package the this flashlight has a run time of 17 hours. This is terrible. The LED flashlight we have been selling for a couple of years will run continuous 7 days on one set of batteries.

Finally, the flashlight had a couple of totally useless brushed metal plates on the side, held in place with steel hex head screws. These add weight, but must be very expensive, and I can see no way that they would actually add durability to the flashlight.

Back to the drawing board, Energizer!

Next time, I will discuss what makes a good flashlight worth the cost.

Small Town TV Stations Join The White Space Debate

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, good business ideas, Pro Sound, wireless microphones — No Comments ↓
shure wireless mic from buywirelessmic.com

shure wireless mic from buywirelessmic.comThe ongoing battle for available broadcast spectrum for new consumer devices has opened on another front.

Dell has joined giants like Google and Microsoft in the fight to control wireless spectrum, but it appears that they are trying to come in the back door.

Forbes reports that Dell founder Michael Dell is quietly buying up bankrupt local television stations.  It seems unlikely that Dell will be hiring weather girls and operating traffic cams, so the speculation is that they are attempting to acquire the broadcast spectrum that the FCC licences to these local broadcasters.  As the value of allocated frequencies continues to rise, Dell may be trying to position itself as a “player” by acquiring rights to spectrum not through FCC auctions like the other major players, but rather by buying into local markets one at a time.

It is difficult to see how this may work in Dell’s favor in the long run, as their attempts to move into consumer broadcast businesses like television and cell phones has not met with much success.

Even less obvious, but perhaps more important, Dell may become a major player (or at least a thorn in the side) as the FCC continues work on a database that can be used by wireless microphone users to locate available spectrum in the locales where they are operating.

You can read more about this discussion here.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.
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Forget About Ever Getting Gaffers Tape “Back In The Box”

Posted on by Jeff Posted in audio visual, gaffers tape, tape — No Comments ↓
gaffers tape from buytape.com

gaffers tape from buytape.comWhen we started selling adhesive backed tapes back in the 1980’s, information regarding manufacturers, specifications, name brands, etc. were pretty straight forward

Over the last 25 years we have continued to see consolidation of manufacturing and brand names in a process that should have made information easier to obtain, but, instead have made it more and more difficult.

In the early years of our company a roll of tape (gaffers, duct, cloth, paper, you name it) was two inches wide and 60 yards long. Seems like it had been that way forever.

The first major change was reducing roll sizes to a metric dimension (55 mm) from imperial (2 inch), but the industry continued to refer to the products as two inches.

Following that change came a number of consolidations among manufacturers and converters who held on to parts of a product’s name or description but not others. Perhaps the most obvious example came when Shurtape (which already made and branded gaffers tape) bought the rights to Permacel’s line of gaffers tapes. In addition to making their own brand of tape, Shurtape was also the maker of Permacel 665 and Permacel Professional Grade gaffers tape. A couple of years later, the Shurtape’s rights to use the Permacel brand expired, but they continued to make the product, rebranded as Shurtape A&E Gaffers Tape while continuing to make the Shurtape brand as well.

As if that was not confusing enough, lots of vendors (primarily online) continue to call these products Permacel years after the brand was gone.

Now, to add to the confusion, Shurtape and their distribution partner, Pro Tapes & Specialties, have downsized the standard roll of gaffers tape from 60 yards to 55 yards. Most web sites that sell these products still describe them as 60 yard rolls, even though they have been shipping the 55 yard rolls for almost a month.

With so much information in control of so many providers, some of whom don’t seem to think the details really matter, it is unlikely that there will ever be a “standard” roll of gaffers tape ever again.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

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A Box of Shakespeare

Posted on by Jeff Posted in good business ideas, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓
ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANYWe‘ve been involved in the New York theatre market for many years, supplying tape products to some of the most successful productions on Broadway. Getting the show up and running is one thing. Getting the whole theatre up and running is quite another.

For their summer residency in New York City, the Royal Shakespeare Company is building a reproduction of their stage at Stratford On Avon inside the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. The Shakespeare company has sent 46 shipping containers by boat to the Upper East Side of Manhattan to build the stage they will need for a six week residency beginning this week and running into August. Rather than have to locate storage facilities for the shipping containers, this innovative stage actually incorporates the containers into the stage construction.

Building a replica of their stage in England means that performers will feel right at home on their temporary stage.

This presentation of six of Shakespeare’s works runs through August 14.

You can see a slide show of the construction process here.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries,  Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.

Automatic mic stand

Posted on by Jeff Posted in microphones & mic stands — No Comments ↓

mike2Since we sell mic stands, I am not really too focused on highlighting web sites that are in direct competition with us. Still, I just came across a product that is too cool to ignoreWhile the notion of spending $800.00 for a mic stand seems completely out of control, it didn’t take long for me to remember at least a dozen times over my career as a sound person for large public events, when I wouldn’t have been willing to spend that kind of money to save an event that was teetering on the brink of disaster.

No matter how much high dollar equipment you have, and regardless of how brilliant a sound tech you might be, just one presenter afflicted with “mic-a-phobia” or “mic-ignoria” can bring the best planned presentation to its knees.

Any seasoned sound person knows that using a mic with a tight cardioid pickup pattern will give you the opportunity to get a lot more gain (volume) out of the sound system before feedback. Because the tighter pickup pattern rejects more of the direct and reflected sound from the speakers, it is possible to make things louder.

Unfortunately, the use of a tightly patterned mic requires that the presenter stay “on axis”, that is with their head and mouth within the pick up pattern of the mic. Once they stray from this area, either by turning to one side or standing too far behind, above or below the mic, they are lost. You stand helplessly at the sound board trying to twist any know you can to get a little more volume, spending all you time on the edge of feedback disaster.

How great it would be to just hit a switch, like that provided with the Chapman system, and bring the mic closer to the presenter. If you do a lot of these sorts of events, things like awards shows and multi-presenter forums, its not hard to imagine how a system like this could pay for itself. Particularly so, since it might well allow you to hang onto an important client (these events tend to be annual in nature) for many years without being sabotaged by a speaker who just doesn’t know how to use a mic.

Can’t afford this Cadillac solution. Then make sure you have an easily adjustable boom stand or a gooseneck on the mic that adjusts quietly. Don’t hesitate to approach all the presenters before their speeches or performances and remind them to adjust the mic before they begin.

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